Hi and welcome to Binding 101, the final step.

Don't you love it when you get to the end of a project and know that all the hard work you have put in is finally done, and you can move guilt-free onto the next one?

Once I have my binding sewn down by machine I look forward to spending the evening quietly contemplating the enjoyment of the project, and anticipating the next, while sewing down my binding.

Love it or hate it, hand sewing does make for a lovely finish, and hopefully with these tips you will find it enjoyable.

To start off, I press my binding back.

Press the binding back from the face of the quilt

This is what the corners will look like

Fold the binding over to the back of the quilt.

Use a fine needle to sew down your binding, this makes it easier to achieve an invisible stitch.

I use a fine applique needle #12 (Clover or Bohin brands are what I have available). These are easy to thread with the Clover desktop needle threader.

I am using Aurifil #50 cotton in Dove...

Welcome to part four of my Binding 101 tutorial.

Joining the ends of my binding was always a bit of a hit and miss affair. I used to fold one end inside the other and hope for the best. This didn't look good as it produced a lumpy, straight join when all the others were mitred and nice and flat.

I tried using various binding gadgets but could never figure out from one quilt to the next what to do, and got frustrated when I cut too much off, or cut the wrong way round.

Then one day I decided the only thing to do was to try and figure it out for myself, and I eventually came up with this method which for me is more intuitive and I can now actually remember how to do it every time!

Get a beautiful join in your binding

Give it a try next time you join your binding...

Start by leaving yourself PLENTY of room to work with. I start sewing my binding 10-12" from the beginning of the strip, and leave a good 12" gap at the end. The orange pins in this photo show where I started and stopped...

Here is part one of my step by step binding tutorial.

I always find this the hardest part of writing instructions and patterns, so I decided to take step by step photos as I did the binding on the Modern Triangle Sampler. There are many different approaches to binding but this is the method I have tweaked over the years to suit me.

Binding 101

Part One - Trimming your quilt

Once the quilting is complete, trim your quilt. If there is a handy seam close to the edge, I use a ruler and measure from this seam to the outside so that I can keep this distance the same. Cut with a rotary cutter. Here I can see that if I use the 4 1/8" line on this border, I can trim the outside edge close enough so I won't see any batting when I sew on my binding.

Line the ruler against the border seam and trim

When you get to a corner, use the ruler to keep everything square. Square corners will be your friend!

2. Preparing the binding strips

First you need to work out how many strips you...